LYALL, SIR ALFRED COMYN , Anglo Indian administrator and writer, was born on Jan. 4, 1835, at Coulsdon, Surrey, and educated at Eton and Haileybury. He entered the Bengal civil service in 1855 and saw service during the Mutiny in the Bulandshakr district, at Meerut, and in Rohil Khand. Lyall's promotion was rapid; in 1865 he was appointed commissioner of Nagpur, and in 1867 of West Berar. In 1873 he was made home secretary to the Government of India, but a year later was appointed governor-general's agent in Rajputana. He drew up a Statistical Account or Gazetteer both of Berar and of Rajputana, which gained some attention as the first work of this kind. In 1878 he became foreign secretary to the Govern ment of India. He resigned in 1881, and was made K.C.B. He was then lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces and Oudh (now the United Provinces), where he administered Lord Ripon's local self-government scheme, and carried out many important legislative reforms. On his retirement from the ser
vice in 1887 he became a member of the India council in Lon don, where he strongly advocated the development of local self government. In Feb. 1887 he was made K.C.I.E., and in 1896 G.C.I.E. He became a privy councillor on his retirement from the India Office in 1902. In 1907 he became chairman of the board of Dulwich college and in 1911 was made a trustee of the British Museum. In his essay Asiatic Studies (1882 and 1889), dealing mainly with the comparative study of religions, he dis plays a deep insight into Indian life and character.
His works include: Verses written in India (1889) ; Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in India (1893) ; Life of Warren Hastings (English Men of Letters series, 1889) ; Life of the Marquis of Dufferin (2 vols., 5905) ; and many articles on Indian questions and on general literature.